I'm a German exchange student staying with a hostfamily in Vermont and all I can say is that I had a great time with my team here in Vermont (#885) and I'll actually try to start a team in Germany just because I had such a good time and I'd like to participate again next year!
I'm from Dorsten in Germany which is pretty far west and a little bit north. Within one hour I can be in the "Ruhrgebiet", on of the largest industrial areas in Germany. I hope to find a machine shop and some engineers as well as some sponsors to help us out in that area...

If there are any other German people that participated this year and will be back in Germany next year, let me know I'd like to talk to you guys!

And if you have any comments, helpoffering, anything that I should know about starting a team or anything else, post it here...

Phil -
I work for a German company - Infineon. One of our engineers, who has since returned to Bavaria, was a mentor in 2000 and 2001. He is without question the strongest FIRST supporter you will ever meet. Contact me by e-mail and I will send you his address. Maybe there is a chance that you can start a team.

in 01' we had a exchange student from Denmark, Andreas and he absolutly LOVED first. Well he went back to Denmark, but before he left he had a meeting with the head honcho from BAE SYSTEMS and they made a contact with a big company in Denmark, so hopfully next year there will be a team!!!

Originally posted by D.J. Fluck In 2000 our team had 2 foreign exchange students on the team, one from Germany and one from France....it was an interesting year

Do you happen to have the contact information for the German one? I'd like to talk to him maybe he's even interested in helping me to build a team in Germany?!?
If you don't have that information, could you ask within your team and get back to me? That would be really cool...

Do you happen to have the contact information for the German one? I'd like to talk to him maybe he's even interested in helping me to build a team in Germany?!?
If you don't have that information, could you ask within your team and get back to me? That would be really cool...

Ill see what I can do, i know he graduated HS last year in Germany, and the kid I knew from his host family graduated back in 2000....ehh ill give him [Host family] a call today and see if i can get some contact info for ya

There's a chance my company might send me to Holland to work for a couple of years, not too far from the German border (at least by standards out here in the West). The only things I've been dreading about it have been the logistics of the move itself and the FIRST withdrawls. The later would be by far the bigger problem at least with the move it's eventually over.

If it happens I'd be willing to help get teams started over on that side of the Pond. If nothing else I can be a service tech type guy and help answer questions. At least I'll be in the right time zone and it would greatly reduce the withdrawl symptoms.

It is with much pleasure that "Metal In Motion" will also bring to Orlando two exchange students from Germany. It is our hope that they too will help celebrate FIRST and introduce it to our friends there. Please be sure and drop by our pit area (Team 343) and say hello to them.

Last spring when Team 25 was doing a demo at the ACGNJ Trenton Computer Festival we made contact with a person associated with the Institute of German Industry. At the time I wrote them a letter to suggest they get some FIRST teams going since they tended to fund similar projects in Germany. I never heard back.

If you folks have a team actually forming in Germany who can follow up with them and be a little persistant I may have a name for you to go to for funding and engineering support. See me in the pits of Team 25 this weekend.

I'm an exchange student from Basel, Switzerland (about 20 minutes from the german border) all the way up here in alaska and I'm also interested in seeing how FIRST develops here in europe, and hopefully switzerland.

The first-virus is inevitable...

we also had a brazilian exchange student in our team, however he didn't go down to seattle for the regionals (which was especially sad as the brazilian team was there...by the way, anyone from the seattle regionals, we're team 628, HEXAGORE)